Alfred Hitchcock, the great mystery and suspense movie director, extensively used a plot device in his films that he referred to as “the McGuffin.” It was usually something like a diamond necklace or a briefcase full of papers, but in actuality, the object itself was of no real importance; what was important was the actions and reactions that the McGuffin caused for the characters. It was the device on which the plot revolved. Within the borderland between creative non-fiction and persuasive academic writing lives a genre that uses personal experience as the impetus for an essay that intends to, or at least understandable. In this genre, the story, that personal story, is the object on which the argument revolves a non-fictive McGuffin.